It’s incredible. There is a shooting in New Zealand, with the trigger pulled by an Australian, and America in general and Trump in specific are being blamed for it. We’ve reached a point where, no matter where in the world it is, we are seen as bearing responsibility.
The executive director of the Council on American-Islamic relations stated to Trump, “”During your presidency and during your election campaign, Islamophobia took a sharp rise and attacks on innocent Muslims, innocent immigrants and mosques have skyrocketed.” He then went on to say, “”We hold you responsible for this growing anti-Muslim sentiment in the country and in Europe, but we also do not excuse those terrorist attackers against minorities at home and abroad.”
I suppose it makes a certain degree of sense. There is no question that Trump’s belligerence has led to acts of terror and attempted terror here in the United States, whether it’s people getting beat up at Trump rallies or nuts in vans sending out bombs to people on Trump’s enemies lists. So it could be argued that he likewise bears responsibility when foreign nationals, inspired by his clear anti-Muslim attitudes, decide that they’re going to kill more than four dozen people who are peacefully worshipping in their mosques. Then again, let’s not condemn all white supremacists: I hear tell there are some very fine people in their ranks.
Let’s see, what else:
1). Emergency? What emergency? Both the House and now the Senate have declared what everyone in the country, up to and including Trump himself, already knew: this is no emergency on the Southern border. Trump’s repeated assertions that to oppose his nonsensical declaration means that you’re for open borders, drug trafficking and rape is widely seen for the tripe that it is. Naturally, Trump vetoed it. He is assuming that the cowardly Mitch McConnell and his coterie of Trump bootlickers wouldn’t dare to override his veto.
Here’s the thing that he he’s ignoring, though. According to a poll on Politico, 52 percent of those polled are opposed to it, and 45 percent state that they are less likely to vote for legislators who support it. Granted, 80 percent of Republicans support it, but the overall numbers are still considerable. Which means that any Senator who chooses to side with Trump is putting his own future in jeopardy. Not to mention the fact that it’s about more than just an emergency. If this declaration is allowed to stand, it lays groundwork for any president, including a future Democratic one, to shove Congress aside and take charge of the country’s purse strings, which is the total opposite of how the Constitution is supposed to work. Are the Senators really comfortable with turning over their power and influence to the Executive branch?
2). How tough are you?. In an interview with one of the few media outlets that Trump trusts–Breitbart–he stated, “I can tell you I have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of the Bikers for Trump – I have the tough people, but they don’t play it tough — until they go to a certain point, and then it would be very bad, very bad.”
What the hëll is that supposed to mean?
There would seem to be only one reasonable interpretation: People screw with Trump at their physical peril. Try to mess with him, try to piss him off, and he’ll send in the police to arrest you, the military to shoot you, and bikers to beat you up and burn down your house. This guy, whose wife is a big believer in stopping bullies, basically just threatened everyone who dislikes him with physical violence and retribution.
Not too hard to believe that he regularly adopts the phrasing and verbiage of criminal mob bosses, is it.
3). Bobbing for Mueller. We have just received further proof of how terrified Trump is of Bob Mueller’s investigation, which I’ve been hearing is “winding up” for the past year. The same week that Paul Manafort is being sentenced to prison, Trump is trying to brush Mueller aside by stating that it should never have been begun in the first place. “This was an illegal & conflicted investigation in search of a crime,” Trump tweeted. He got one out of three right, which is pretty good for Trump: It wasn’t illegal or conflicted, but it was in search of crime and it has increasingly found it as Trump’s friends and advisors are sentenced to jail. Trump is also determined to make sure the report never reaches the public, but I’m reasonably sure that someone will leak it to the Post or the Times or maybe Random House and the details will get out, no matter how much the Justice Department tries to keep it under wraps. Hëll, maybe it’ll come out at the exact same time as the GOP national convention; how hilarious would THAT be?
Did he do anything right? Yes. Remember when the US used to take the lead on world events. This time pretty much every other major country banned the 737 that has been crashing, but Trump held firm that he wasn’t going to…until he did. So yay, I guess. Every so often, after every other country does the right thing, Trump will reluctantly follow suit.
Nice to know.
PAD
• 
I’m sorry, I couldn’t hear the Trump news over the happy noise my head was making about Peter returning to the Hulk, with Dale Keown on art, no less!
INCREDIBLE HULK: LAST CALL #1
PETER DAVID (W) • DALE KEOWN (A/C)
June 2019!
Now this news will always “trump” all other news! I can’t wait for this to come out!
The Senators and Representatives who backed Trump (at least the ones from purple states) may indeed put themselves in jeopardy in the next general elecion. However, their political myopia is focused on the next *primary* election, where the fear of being outflanked by an opponent rallying the Trump base to defeat them looms large in their minds. The Trumpanistas may be only 35% of the general electorate, but in Republican primaries they can still be a dominating force. So many GOPoliticians will hug Trump as if he were the flag at a CPAC convention while kicking what little remains of their conservative principles to the curb.
Here in the UK the awful, tragic New Zealand shooting has obviously been big news but I can say that in the news I have seen not one news reporter (or anyone interviewed) mentioned Trump once. So I think it is just in the US that this link is being made.
Then you must have missed the BBC News report which mentioned the very subject of the shooter being a Trunp supporter and his online posts about it (I’m also from the UK and saw it mentioned at least twice)
I’m surprised you’ve made no mention of the whole absurd “Jexodus” thing. (Which is furthermore the stupidest portmanteau title I’ve ever heard . . . especially considering, you know, the whole origin of “exodus.”) Then again, who can realistically keep up with ALL the insane bull$#!+ that the presi-dunce spews out of his twit-hole.
Peter, I hope when Trump leaves office (The sooner, the better, of course) that you reprint all of your freak out Fridays as you did your “But I digress” columns. Hëll, maybe you should include your entries on the George W. Bush years and your Memento Morrie story as well. The way I see it, if you had to suffer all of it, you are entitled to some recompense.
Trump isn’t the originator of the current wave of white supremacism, but he surely has provided a LOT of fuel to it and Trump’s rise is, partly, connected to the same root causes of this wave of white supremacism.
.
In this week, we also had here in Brazil a school shooting where two guys killed and maimed high schoolers (they claimed 8 lives) and then shot themselves.
.
What is shocking is that in Brazil school shootings are extremely rare. These guys were clearly copying the “American” model, and it’s not a coincidence that this happened when an aggressive authoritarian populist patterned after Trump is our President.
.
White supremacism and authoritarian populism MUST be fought. It’s a worlwide phenomenon now.
.
However, I also think we must be cautious by not indulging into divisive rethoric that demonizes white males. Just like it’s wrong to demonize all Muslims whenever some Muslim fanatic commits some attrocity.
.
We seriously need to embrace the politics of empathy, universal fellowship, and democratic institutions. We must refrain from dehumanizing any groups. At the same time, law enforcement needs to seriously keep tabs on white supremacists and start treating them like the serious menace they are.
That schools shootings are rare someplace is “shocking”. Have we really become that accepting of our children being murdered?
“Have we really become that accepting of our children being murdered?”
.
Yes.
.
Especially if you’re a Republican.
Hi Pete. Love your run on Hulk. The main problem is that you don’t have a 3rd party in the USA with any kind of clout. The people keep on expecting a proper democracy instead of an enshrinment of one of two options. If it’s self-destructive, then it’s because it never worked in the first place.
The Republican ones certainly have been so far.
“Are the Senators really comfortable with turning over their power and influence to the Executive branch?”
They sure didn’t mind it for the 16 years of Dubbya and Obama; why wouldn’t Trump assume this is the new normal?
Agree. I hold Obama personally responsible for the attacks and murders of police officers during his presidency for dangerous rhetoric blaming the officers for the behaviors of their attackers.